


Confrontation

by TimmyJaybird



Series: Ground Zero [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 10:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimmyJaybird/pseuds/TimmyJaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally, it's time to put a face to another player in the war over Gotham.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confrontation

The Joker fell back on the table, Bruce’s weight following him, pining him to the cold metal as his mouth was eagerly assaulted. He’d had control of the kiss for the first few moments, but now it was all his Bats kissing and nipping and licking and _opening_ him in a way he hadn’t anticipated.

He wound his arms around Batman’s neck, fingers tracing the seam of his cowl along his neck.

“Don’t even try it,” he breathed against the man’s painted lips- as if the touch had brought him out of some sort of trance- and the Joker giggled.

“You for- _get_ Bats, I had you unmasked. And I still left you your precious dignity.”

Bruce hesitated. The man had a point, he could have seen his face at anytime that night, and he hadn’t.

“Why did you do that?” he whispered, and the Joker frowned.

“Your lips are doing the wrong dance, sugar,” he said, but when the silence told him Bruce had lost his fire, he sighed. “I don’t need to know your other mask, Batsy- I see the real you _every night_. The mask just gets in the way of the fun. But I might be up for leaving it on if you take a few other things off, lambchop.”

Batman didn’t respond, and the Joker was sure for a moment the fun was over for the night. About to resign himself to finding a way to convince the Bat to let him take the blindfold off- he’d worked too hard to get a little trust from the man to just take it off himself- he pushed himself up into a sitting position, just as he heard the gentle rustle of fabric.

He paused, listened, and suddenly the Bat was leaning in, pulling him so their chests were flush. He reached down, grabbed one delicate hand and brought it up, rested it against his bare cheek.

The Joker’s lips slipped open as his fingers trailed along that exposed face.

“This is all you get,” Bruce breathed, his very core trembling at those icy fingertips.

“This is all I need,” the Joker murmured, before he sunk both his hands into Bruce’s dark hair and pulled him back for one more kiss.

When Harley cracked her eyes open, she wasn’t sure if ten minutes or thirty hours had passed. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and looking around the dark room. She was alone- there was a distinct lack of anyone else breathing, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was.

As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, Ivy’s emerald eyes and pink lips came back to her. Under neath a park- underground apartment. She giggled at the craziness of it as she found the door and stepped out, into a lit hallway, and followed it until it opened up into a little kitchen.

Ivy was standing at the counter, idly nibbling on something in one hand as she played her fingers over something in a little box. Harley slipped in and settled down at the table just as she was noticed, and Ivy set down her little snack and smiled.

“Good morning sleepy head,” she said pleasantly, smiling, and it was infectious and Harley was smiling back.

“Morning. What time is it?”

Ivy shrugged a shoulder. “It’s light out at least,” she offered, and Harley nodded, tracing a random pattern into the table with one finger. Ivy was bustling about next to her, coming closer and brushing some of her hair back. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright,” she offered, though her knees stung like they’d been skinned, and there was a dull ache to her side. When she closed her eyes all she saw was red- rusty and dark and nearly _black_. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” Harley shook her head, waves of blonde tumbling around her, and Ivy twirled some around one of her fingers. “Doll, you went crazy on some guy. I don’t know what he said to make you do...what you _did_ , but you gutted him. When I got back to you, you were strangling him with his own intestines.”

Harley tapped her fingers now, her nails clicking on the table, and she sucked on her lower lip- closed her eyes. She fought through the rusty red, the swimming black- and saw him. Clear as day, crisp and dead beneath her as she _laughed and laughed and laughed_.

“Oh,” was all she breathed, opening her eyes, just in time to see the needle.

The daylight hurt the Joker’s eyes. He grimaced against it, raked a hand through his wild curls and clicked his tongue. The car he was in was being driven by a known drug dealer- one of the few under his protection left alive. And despite the pain of the sun, he had the window down and was sprawled in the backseat, not really wanting to go anywhere yet.

The Bat had sent him out just before dawn- he’d been oh-so _kind_ and asked him where he could take him- where he could drop him off because he couldn’t be in that silly Bat cave come dawn.

The Joker picked a random living underling at random- and was silently happy he was, in fact, still living. This war was shaking the control he used to have over this city- striking at his foundation and leaving him tipping, ready to collapse. He hated to admit it- but it made Crane and Ivy necessary. They had pull still- Crane for sure, and Ivy had charisma. He could use their pull to get his nails and teeth back into Gotham.

The car slowed down, and suddenly the window was rushing up. The Joker straightened, agitated.

“What’s the hold up?” he asked, leaning forward, and the man in the driver’s seat swallowed the lump in his throat.

“C-cops, sir,” he said, “looks like a barricade ahead.”

“Well,” he said, sucking on his teeth and seeing in the distance the rubble that was- just the other night- the last base of command he had. “Dammit, turn the car around.”

“W-where to then?”

The Joker frowned, leaning back into the seat and folding his arms. “Your place, doll. I need a place to think.”

“What was that?” Harley cried as she jerked back, the needle slipping from the flesh of her thigh. Ivy set it on the table and stroked her cheek with the back of her hand, smiling.

“Nothing bad,” she said, “I promise.” She sat down, took Harley’s hands and held them in her’s. “Harley, we’ve gotta be honest here. This is going to get ugly- and fast. This war...if it turns into what your man thinks it will, I don’t know how any of us will make it out alive. I don’t know how _Gotham_ will make it out alive.” She ran her thumb over Harley’s knuckles, felt the flesh move over bone, committed it to memory. “It’s gonna get ugly, and I’m almost more afraid of “friendly” fire than I am of anything else.” Ivy sighed. “The last person I want to hurt if you, Harley. So I’m going to make you immune to my toxins. That shot is just the first- you’ll need more over the next few days, but eventually nothing I have will be able to harm you.”

Harley sat there, staring. Did her ears deceive her? If Ivy was telling the truth, than Harley would be unstoppable against her- the one thing that could by-pass all her defenses and take her down. Harley would be the one thing that could kill her without even a scratch.

This was the one thing you didn’t do- Harley knew that. She ven still reacted to any toxin the Joker used- it wouldn’t kill her, but she’d been sent into short boughts of hysteria because she hadn’t been careful when gassing people. Yet...here Ivy was, making her invincible.

“How do you know I won’t just try to kill you?” Harley asked, and Ivy just smiled- a sad, lonely sort of smile.

“I don’t.”

Harley and Ivy didn’t leave until nightfall. Once in the dark, they felt secure enough to try and regroup. They needed to find Crane, they needed to locate the Joker. They needed to start taking back some control.

Harley was back in her original clothing- she had refused to go about in the city in one of Ivy’s silly little sundresses. Her jeans had tried blood on them and the knees were torn out- and everything smelled like gunpowder. She liked it that way.

Barely a few blocks from the park, Ivy was considering calling her people. She didn’t have a lot of connections- with her power of plants, she didn’t need an army, just a forest- but she kept a few. Harley had shushed her though, told her not to bother. She was sure, down in the marrow in her bones, that the Joker would find them. And soon.

Harley couldn’t have been more right.

Harley had been leaning against the lamp post as Ivy calculated how far they were from the burnt down warehouse when she felt his hands on her. One wrapped around her front and pressed flat against her stomach, the other wrapping around her chin and throat. His breath was hot in her ear, his body tight against her’s as he pulled her back without a word against him, and Harley felt that spike of fear course through her that he always gave her.

She mumbled something against his hand, and he grinned, whispered in her ear,

“You look well.”

Ivy turned at the voice, tense, ready to spring, but stopped when she saw that purple coat, the green hair. The Joker released Harley, grinned and extended his arms.

“Ivy, what an, ah, pleasure to see you came to no harm. I saw what happened, what a shame. I hope you girls didn’t sleep in a box last night.”

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked, storming over, reaching for Harley and yanking her away. The blonde stumbled, fell against her and let herself melt for a moment, in a way she hadn’t been able to against the Joker’s chest.

Harley thought she may have hit her head the night before.

“I’ve been, ah, keeping us in the game,” he said with a grin, reaching up to twirl one of his curls. “Making sure we have _friends_ in all the right places.”

“We need friends in _every_ place to get through this,” Ivy hissed. “They fucking blew our little safe house sky high. How the _hell_ did they even find us? We’ve got no pull at all in this place if they think they can just attack us in our home like that without any recoil.”

“Oh, there will be recoil,” the Joker said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ll just call in a friend to take care of all of it.”

“We don’t even know _who_ it was. It could be anyone.” The Joker grinned madly.

“I know _exactly_ who it was.”

Bruce didn’t like this, down in his gut. He didn’t like it at all. But with a city about to be turned upside down, what choice did he have except to trust the clown? So here he was, speeding through Gotham in the tumbler, because the Joker had said to meet him, had said he was sure there was going to be something big that night, right in the center of town.

What scared him the most is that the clown had patched into his personal line in the batcave and gotten him as the night was falling. He’d had that damn blindfold on the entire time he was there- Bruce had made sure, had secured him to the table when he told him to sleep for a few hours- so he had no idea how he’d gotten any information. The pit of his gut twisted and told him if he didn’t step his game up, the Joker would be knocking on his penthouse door soon calling him “Brucie baby” and bringing flowers.

Bruce left the tumbler and went by roof top. Gotham was bustling, alive, and no one knew that anything was amiss. Bruce crouched, waited for something- be it a sign from the clown or the mayhem to begin-

He didn’t have to wait long.

The blast rocked the street to its core- an explosion in one of the many coffee shops that lines the streets and served all night long to those whose addiction was greater than their need for sleep. The sound of the glass bellowing and shattering hurt Bruce’s ears even down the street, but he was moving before anyone else could.

He leaped from the building he was on and landed in a crouch, people parting around him as they fled from the mayhem. Across the street the mangled contents of the shop were stained rust now, ash and blood, and Bruce was sure he saw an arm laying on the sidewalk.

He stood up, glaring, blood running hot with rage- and then he heard it, the voice speaking from _above_ the building. He looked up, saw on the roof a hulking figure leaning over the railing that enclosed the upper cafe. In the moonlight he looked like a ghost- a hunk of pure ethereal marble- but solid as steel.

_Bane._

“Gotham.” His voice was cool and calm, as if he didn’t even think the small explosion that had killed the few people in the cafe could possibly shake the buildings foundation and send him toppling down to his death. “I hope I have your attention.”

The people below stopped moving, stood frozen in time and space and just _stared_ up at him. He’d killed innocents just to get their _attention_.

“As of right now, this city is under siege. As of right now, you are all at war. And you’re either with me- or you’re dead. There will be no other options.” The figures that stood as shadows around him lifted their guns, aiming down at the tiny shapes that were living beings. “For too long this city has been plagued by the vermin and parasites that think they have a hand in the way this city operates. For too long, we have been infested with those who would take Gotham for themselves- if only they were man enough to grasp her.”

Bane made a fist- a huge shape that seemed the size of a head in that moment. “Tonight, Gotham, is my declaration of war against the rest of my fellow “criminals”, as the media would so love to call us. So run, run if you won’t stand and fight with me, and give Gotham to the only one man enough to make her the city she _should_ be.”

“You’re not even a man, Bane.”

Bruce leaped right after saying those words, having scaled the side of the building, up the remnants of the fire escape and then along the rough brick. He collided with the hulking man and set him off balance, until he toppled to his side and Bruce managed to land a fist to his face.

By now he could hear sirens in the distance, pooling around the gutted building as doors slammed and officers raised their guns. Bane’s men open fired on them, raining bullets down into the streets.

Bruce tried to focus on the hulking man beneath him, before Bane seemed to effortlessly lift him as he stood and throw him towards the other end of the building. Bruce smacked into a small table and knocked it and its accompanying chairs over, landing in a heap in the debris. He groaned, but before he could force himself up Bane had crossed the roof and lifted him up again.

“I knew you’d show up,” he said, walking slowly towards the edfe o the building. “And I’m glad, Batman. I’m very glad, because now I can eliminate you before you cause any real trouble.”

He stopped, holding Bruce over the edge of the building with one strong arm. Bruce clutched at it, kicked his legs but found only air.

“Anything to say?” Bane asked through that mask, and Bruce’s lips parted to the sound of a wheezed breath.

“Yeah, hands off my _man_ , big boy.”

Bruce couldn’t see him, but he felt the impact the bullet made on Bane’s shoulder. The man teetered just a bit and spun, throwing Bruce back onto another table as he glared across the building at the lithe man holding the dainty little gun that caused the burn in his beefy shoulder.

“ _You_.” He growled, and then he was making long strides across the building. The Joker was just grinning, twirling that gun and waiting, waiting-

When Bane lunged, he ducked, crouching low and then rolling, the man finding nothing but empty air and then concrete against his body. The Joker was quick to his feet, bouncing as the adrenaline coursed through his hyper active body. Bane pushed himself up and turned, lunging again, and this time the Joker sidestepped. As Bane hit the ground again he pushed down on his shoulders and leaped over him, laughing the whole time.

“Bane-y, you’ll just _have_ to have a little more grace than that.”

He cackled until his breath caught in his throat when a large hand clutched his ankle and threw him across the roof. The Joker landed in a pile with Bruce, who was struggling to sit up, a nasty splinter from one of the table sticking into his thigh.

Bane was looming over them, crackling his massive knuckles.

“I’ll crush you both-“

“Not if I have anything ta say ‘bout it, Mista.”

Bane turned, and that was the moment Harley’s little fist connected with his neck, blocking his windpipe for just enough time to make him choke. He staggered back a stepped and she ducked down, pounding her fists into his iron gut and making him take another step back.

Bruce tried to move, but the pain in his leg sent him howling, and he gripped at the thigh, unable to move. Bile rose in his throat and he swallowed it down as the Joker was launching up from the debris next to him, as if he had never even fallen down.

Bruce watched as he threw himself onto the large man, arms wrapping around his neck and steering him so he turned to face Bruce. Bane’s men were still preoccupied by the police trying to swarm the building, leaving the man alone to face the two clowns- which may have been the only reason they all weren’t dead yet.

The Joker launched himself back off Bane just as Harley kicked out, her hell connected with his lower back. He stumbled, down to a knee, and the Joker had a knife out and plunged it down between his shoulder blades, abandoning it when Bane turned and swung a punch around- catching the Joker on the side of his ribs as he danced away.

Just as he was gone Harley was back, her own knife out, sticking it inches deep into his bicep. He reached for her, managed to grab her thin arm and yanked her close. She yelped, pulled, but Bane’s grip was iron and slowly he stood- the knives sticking out of him- holding her up so she dangled off the ground.

“Whore,” he said without losing his cool, but before he could move the clown was back, knife in each hand- Bruce would never understand how he hide so many on such a thin body- and laughing. Bane stopped, turned to the Joker, who stopped his laughing to grin manically at him.

“Come here big boy,” he said, licking his painted lips, “Why don’t you show me if you can even _handle_ that body of yours?”

Bane glared and tossed Harley to the side- forgetting her in that moment because she truly never was his target- and strode forward, steps heavy- so heavy they seemed to shake the unsteady foundation of the building.

The Joker tossed his knife from hand to hand, waited- didn’t move, and didn’t blink when Bane’s fist connected with his gut and sent him spiraling down. Bruce tried to move again because damn if that man stood a chance against the monster that was Bane, but he choked on his cry and reached for his thigh, felt the wood that had completely pierced him and broke through his well muscled thigh.

On the ground, the Joker was laughing as Bane loomed over him, leaning down.

“I will crush you,” he said, grasping him by the collar and hoisting him up. In that one fluid movement the Joker raised one arm and flicked his hand down, hitting a small trigger inside his sleeve which sent a stream of yellow tinged gas into Bane’s face. He coughed beneath his mask and dropped the man, the coughs turning to gasps, to chokes, and then to a sick, rattling laughter that wheezed in his mask.

When the man collapsed to his knees, laughing still, the Joker took the knife he had in hand and plunged it into his back for good measure, before running across the building.

“Time to go,” he said, reaching down and pulling Harley up, who winced but stood. The Joker looked down at Bruce, flicked his eyes on his thigh, and his smile disappeared. “Shit Bats, that doesn’t look so, ah, good.” He crouched down. “Can you stand?”

“Probably,” Bruce said through gritted teeth as he tried. The Joker grasped his arms and stood up, pulling, and Harley stood on his wounded side to brace him as he stood. The pain shot up his leg but he gritted his teeth and bore it, leaning on the slender girl as little as he could. The Joker clicked his tongue, then released his hold on Bruce and took Harley’s place. The vigilante leaned his weight against him without even realizing, and a little smile played on the clown’s lips.

“Let’s get outta here,” Harley said, looking at the bodies that lay along the roof, the few remaining in the shoot out with the police- and Bane, clutching himself and laughing as he knelt, his eyes glaring daggers into the empty space in front of him.

The climb down was agonizingly slow. They had to take the exit into the building and go down a flight of stairs to even get to the fire escape- the whole time Bruce held his breath and wondered when the building was going to go down- if it was.

The fire escape went even slower. The Joker sent Harley ahead and walked slowly with Bruce, who left a smeared bloody footprint behind with each step. The odd feeling of the lithe man against him, guiding him was soothing though- but he’d be damned before he admitted that to either clown.

“Clear!” Harley yelled up once she had landed her feet on solid ground and beckoned them down. The Joker hurried Bruce along, despite the pain and the glares the vigilante gave him. Once on the ground though, both clowns seemed hesitant, thinking as to the next move.

“Cut through the allies,” Bruce said through his teeth. “If we can get to the tumbler, we can get out of here.”

“You heard the man,” the Joker said, and Harley was off, inside his head and leading the way along buildings, through shadows- being his eyes and ears so that he could let the Bat melt into him safely.

When they got to the Tumbler and Bruce had it opened however, the trouble started.

“Help me get him inside Harley, so I can figure out how-“

“You’re not driving.” Bruce’s voice was flat, and the Joker just laughed.

“You’re in no condition to drive, sugar. You’ll, ah, pass out on us from blood loss. Just let me handle-“

“You wouldn’t even know where to go.”

“Than tell me-“ Bruce glare silenced him and the Joker huffed, frowning. Harley stood, tapping her foot, precious time ticking away. “Batsy _baby_ , you don’t have to hide behind that mask anymore. We’re partners now, remember? Just tell me how to get you home, and you can worry about beating the information out of me _lay_ -ter.”

Bruce said nothing, and the Joker’s frown grew. He released the man and left him to lean on the beast of a vehicle, walking over the Harley and climbing in.

“Fine! Forget it, Bats. I’m not in the mood for you to play hard to get.” He helped Harley in and left Bruce to pull himself into the tumbler- relieved when he could finally take all the weight off his leg and sit as the car closed in on them.

However, as he sped them off into the night, he still knew he had to tackle the fact that he was taking not just the Joker, but Harley as well back to his layer. from the building he was on and landed in a crouch, people parting around him as they fled from the mayhem. Across the street the mangled contents of the shop were stained rust now, ash and blood, and Bruce was sure he saw an arm laying on the sidewalk.

**Author's Note:**

> Good lord thanks guys for waiting so long for an update. School, ya know? So I'm not overly happy with this, but it is what it is.


End file.
